The Leflore County Board of Supervisors has hit a hump in its efforts to slow down speeding drivers.
County Engineer Robert Willis, responding to repeated requests to install speed bumps on county roads through residential areas, said Monday that the obstacles aren’t appropriate on most of the county’s roads.
Willis said that speed bumps shouldn’t be installed on any road where more than 85 percent of drivers are going more than 45 miles per hour. For cars traveling that quickly, Willis said the speed bumps can be dangerous and actually cause crashes.
That answer appeared to frustrate Board President Wayne Self, who has been pushing for speed bumps in several areas in his district. Self said his concern isn’t with the possible damage to cars, but with the families and children who live along the roads.
Pointing to routes such as Money Road or County Road 512 — where motorists routinely drive well in excess of the speed limit — Willis said that speed bumps might cause more harm than good. He also noted that the county could be held legally liable if the bumps cause a wreck.
Willis distributed to the supervisors a 1993 study on speed bumps that discourages their use.
“It’s not telling you not to slow them down. It’s telling you that speed bumps, humps, whatever you want to call them, aren’t the proper method,” he said.
Asked what method should be used, Willis said, “Tickets.”
On that front, Sheriff Ricky Banks said the county has been frustrated for years by a state law that prohibits sheriff’s deputies from using radar to issue speeding tickets.
Banks said that means his deputies have to pace motorists in order to issue tickets, a time-intensive undertaking. As a result, Banks said his department simply doesn’t have the manpower to consistently enforce the speed limit in problematic areas.
Asking for assistance from the Mississippi Highway Patrol also isn’t an option, Banks said, since “they don’t have the authority to give tickets off of a state highway.”
Banks said a radar-equipped deputy would be able to bust speeders in the county much more effectively, but the longtime sheriff said the state Legislature has repeatedly blocked attempts — stretching back at least 25 years — to allow sheriff’s departments statewide to use the technology to catch speeders.
“The Legislature just refuses to approve it,” Banks said. “The (Mississippi) Sheriffs’ Association has tried several times, and it just doesn’t go anywhere.”
District 1 Supervisor Phil Wolfe called the county’s situation a “rat trap,” with speed bumps a potentially counterproductive liability and a Sheriff’s Department handicapped in its efforts to rein in speeders.
“The Legislature evidently doesn’t want to help, so what can you do?” Wolfe said. Wolfe added that the only justification for the ban on radar he’d ever heard from lawmakers was a desire to prevent counties from becoming “speed traps” that aggressively chase revenue from traffic tickets.
Among the remaining options available to the county to slow down traffic, Banks and Willis said the best might be to install more speed limit signs — including ones with flashing yellow lights to help grab attention.
District 3 Supervisor Anjuan Brown said that, at least so far, recently installed flashing lights and even rumble strips haven’t been doing much to slow traffic flying down County Road 507 near Mississippi Valley State University.
A local and private bill in the Mississippi Legislature could also give the Leflore County Sheriff’s Department the power to deploy radar. Banks sounded skeptical about its chances of success, even though a couple of other counties in the state — including Lowndes County — have received permission to deploy the devices.
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
